NGOs Pledge To Help

'People will be in need of clean linen, clothing, appliances, household items and foodstuff and we are asking our groups and organisations to help mobilise and coordinate relief for affected victims. NGOs and CSOs are well-positioned to identify and serve the persons in need and should collaborate with their local government officials and members of Parliament and national relief agencies to help alleviate the sufferings of flood-stricken districts.' - Dr Kris Rampersad, International Relations Director, Network of NGOs for the Advancement of Women on Flood Relief efforts

NGOs pledge to help

WEDNESDAY 4 AUGUST 2010

The TT Red Cross Society (TTRCS) has not issued a public appeal but is doing its part by preparing hampers. An official of the TTRCS said volunteers were out on the field doing assessments.

A disaster officer disclosed that they visited Macaulay, Preysal, Gasparillo and Waterloo along with officials of the Office of Disaster Relief and Management. First-aid at shelters in Gasparillo and Waterloo is being handled by the TTRCS.

The Society of St Vincent de Paul (SVP) will provide assistan

ce to affected persons through its 69 branches located across the country. President of the Society Rudolph Boneo said the SVP customarily received donation “drop offs” and the branches will network with the head office about persons at parishes in need.

The Congress of the People’s Flagship House, Tragarete Road, Port-of-Spain is the collection site for tinned food, baby items and toiletries donated by the public. The COP has asked for food items, baby items, water and first-aid supplies to be dropped off. Collection is from 7.30 am. Further information can be obtained by calling 6222-5817.

A San Fernando Relief Centre has been established at the corner of Lower Hillside and Coffee Street next to Black Gold. Supplies can be delivered between the hours of 9 am to 5 pm. A request was made for water, mattresses, blankets tinned foods etc.

The COP thanked citizens for showing compassion and dedication to assist their brothers and sisters in their “time of need”.

The Network of Non-Governmental Organisations yesterday called for all its member organisations, other NGOs and civil society organisations (CSO) to coordinate and mobilise relief efforts for flood victims in their districts.

In a release, international relations director for the Network Dr Kris Rampersad said, “People will be in need of clean linen, clothing, appliances, household items and foodstuff and we are asking our groups and organisations to help mobilise and coordinate relief for affected victims.”

She said NGOs and CSOs were well positioned to identify and serve the persons in need and should collaborate with their local government officials and members of Parliament “and national relief agencies to help alleviate the sufferings of flood-stricken districts.”

The Health Ministry issued an advisory on food and water safety after floods advising persons affected not to cook or eat fruits and vegetables or food in bags or cartons soaked in flood waters. Food in damaged cans or any poultry or animals drowned in floods should not be eaten. The ministry warned against bathing or playing in flood waters, as these can carry water-borne diseases. “Wear rubber gloves and other protective clothing for personal protection during clean-up to avoid direct skin contact with contaminated material.”

To disinfect water the ministry suggested boiling water until it reached “rolling boil for one minute”. A one-eighth teaspoon (0.75 ml) or eight drops of bleach should be used to one gallon of water and the water should be allowed to stand for 30 minutes.

Trinidad and Tobago's Newsday : newsday.co.tt

For more about Dr Kris Rampersad, NGOs, Climate Change, Floods, Sustainable Development visit www.krisrampersad.com

Skewed development vision in CHOGM concept paper

Skewed development vision in CHOGM concept paper

by

20091129

Dr Kris Rampersad

Despite its very clear identification of Commonwealth challenges, and its theme Partnering for a More Equitable and Sustainable Future, the CHOGM concept paper gives unequal focus to its three key words, 'partnering, equitable, and sustainable.' The paper is heavily slanted to climate change, almost to the oblivion of all else, and even that is skewed to the perspective that all the world's ensuing problems will arise from the climate change phenomenon. This constitutes a business-as-usual, plaster-on-the-sore approach that holds the symptoms for the cause.

It ignores the reality that anticipated challenges from changing climate patterns are really manifestations of the continued imposition of culturally alien financial and other systems on many of the world's communities, unbalanced economic development, neglect of the contributions of women and girls, and inequitable investments in the largely rural-based agricultural sectors in favour of close-to-the-nose urban sectors.

The paper's approach is analogous to the get-rich-quick models that spiraled the financial crisis in the first instance; the failures that have arisen from focus on economic security at the expense of food security; and the disrespect for home-grown, culturally evolved modes of coping with life's challenge that have excluded large segments of the world's peoples from an equal share of development – spring-factors that will exacerbate the impacts of climate change, not the other way around!

The concept can certainly benefit from strengthened emphasis on the need for integrated and multi/cross sectoral approaches that promote balance and equity and that recognise different notions and cultures of development that can add enormously to solutions for the current crises of finance, food security, water and land management, soil conservation, rising temperatures and ocean levels.

As it treats with climate change, there is need in the concept for dedicated attention through paragraphs that:

1. recognise that peoples' cultures are central and pivotal to development around which all else orbits if there is to be widespread buy-in-to the Millennium Development Goals;

2. account for the conditions of and contributions of two-thirds of the Commonwealth–who are women and children–as key starting points (not endpoints) to reversing the horrifying imbalances of poverty, malnourishment, child and maternal mortality that will be aided and alleviated through - not token - but revisionist priority positioning of agriculture, food security and rural in the Commonwealth and others' development agendas.

This would go a long way to help right the lopsided vision in the concept, clouded as it is by climate change as the looming tsunami bearing down on the world, by sharpening its focus on the real subjects of the MDGs: the neglected communities that huddle on tsunami-endangered coastlines, farmers who are squeezed onto precarious hillside to produce the world's food as concrete encroach on prime agriculture lands and the plight of the disadvantaged, including women and children.

1. The CHOGM 2009 Concept Paper: http://www.chogm2009.org/pdf/October%20Concept%20Paper%20Final.pdf

2. Dr Kris Rampersad, a T&T based media, cultural and literary development consultant and international relations director of the Network of NGOS of Trinidad and Tobago for the Advancement of Women, reviews the Concept Paper for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in the context of status of the global development agenda.

Visit for more https://krisrampersad.com/

Skewed development vision in CHOGM concept paper | The Trinidad Guardian

Skewed development vision in CHOGM concept paper ...Imbalanced attention to key drivers: culture, gender and rural development

Despite its very clear identification of Commonwealth challenges, and its theme Partnering for a More Equitable and Sustainable Future, the CHOGM concept paper gives unequal focus to its three key words, ‘partnering, equitable, and sustainable.’ The paper is heavily slanted to climate change, almost to the oblivion of all else, and even that is skewed to the perspective that all the world’s ensuing problems will arise from the climate change phenomenon. This constitutes a business-as-usual, plaster-on-the-sore approach that holds the symptoms for the cause.
It ignores the reality that anticipated challenges from changing climate patterns are really manifestations of the continued imposition of culturally alien financial and other systems on many of the world’s communities, unbalanced economic development, neglect of the contributions of women and girls, and inequitable investments in the largely rural-based agricultural sectors in favour of close-to-the-nose urban sectors.
The paper’s approach is analogous to the get-rich-quick models that spiraled the financial crisis in the first instance; the failures that have arisen from focus on economic security at the expense of food security; and the disrespect for home-grown, culturally evolved modes of coping with life’s challenge that have excluded large segments of the world’s peoples from an equal share of development — spring-factors that will exacerbate the impacts of climate change, not the other way around!
The concept can certainly benefit from strengthened emphasis on the need for integrated and multi/cross sectoral approaches that promote balance and equity and that recognise different notions and cultures of development that can add enormously to solutions for the current crises of finance, food security, water and land management, soil conservation, rising temperatures and ocean levels.
As it treats with climate change, there is need in the concept for dedicated attention through paragraphs that:
1. recognise that peoples’ cultures are central and pivotal to development around which all else orbits if there is to be widespread buy-in-to the Millennium Development Goals;
2. account for the conditions of and contributions of two-thirds of the Commonwealth—who are women and children—as key starting points (not endpoints) to reversing the horrifying imbalances of poverty, malnourishment, child and maternal mortality that will be aided and alleviated through - not token - but revisionist priority positioning of agriculture, food security and rural in the Commonwealth and others’ development agendas.
This would go a long way to help right the lopsided vision in the concept, clouded as it is by climate change as the looming tsunami bearing down on the world, by sharpening its focus on the real subjects of the MDGs: the neglected communities that huddle on tsunami-endangered coastlines, farmers who are squeezed onto precarious hillside to produce the world’s food as concrete encroach on prime agriculture lands and the plight of the disadvantaged, including women and children.